“Premonition” (Theme for Secret Origins Podcast) written and performed by Neil Daly.

Additional music: “What is Life” by George Harrison; “Birth of a Penguin, Part 2” by Danny Elfman; “Untitled Self Portrait” by Will Arnett; “Little Victories” by Matt Nathanson; “66” by The Afghan Whigs; “Cara Mia” by Jay & The Americans.

Everyone is saying so many nice things!! You guys are so kind!! You know he’s not coming back for another encore episode of feedback, right? You can stop sucking up now.

This episode was a really wonderful cover stone on the tomb of this podcast. Loved hearing the “secret origins” of the various episodes, and your interview with Greg was a delight and a perfect farewell! And don’t listen to all those people comparing this episode to the ending of the film, “Return of the King”.

I spoke my feelings on episode 50, so I won’t gush here again. Love this show. Love you, bro. It will be missed. So sad to see you resigning from the podcasting community. Stop by and drop us a line sometime!

Ryan, you should be proud of this achievement. Congrats, pal! As the legendary Zefram Cochrane would say, “That’ll do pig.”

PS: Ryan was totally crying during Episode 50. He had to blow his nose and everything. … So did I.

Interesting to hear your take on our preliminaries to recording our episodes. It wasn’t so much cold feet as I was going through a rough time with work. I was a bookseller for 20 years; but, was kind of forced out of the job. I had a hard time adjusting to new circumstances and found that, as I am nearing 50 (in a little over 2 weeks) that I was less satisfied to hold my tongue and put up with bad leadership and poor treatment by companies. I was working for a department store and hating life heavily. However, a new retailer was opening up and I easily secured a full-time position and was much happier. That’s when I decided I could do the broadcast; also, after talking it over with my girlfriend, who encouraged me to do it, as an escape from the stress at the department store. I’m glad I did and I had fun both times. It led to me also doing a segment with Dr Allen, for Veteran’s Day, which gave me a chance to talk about Blackhawk (a favorite) and my time as a wet-nosed naval ensign.

I’ve thought about podcasting; but, I’m not up to speed on the technical side and, my current job (yep, changed again; but really enjoying this one) includes an hour commute; so, time is an issue. Still, who knows what the future holds?

Ryan, you did a fantastic job with this series and you were unselfish in bringing so many of us into it, and giving us a playground for bad jokes, comic story suggestions, and general banter, in the comments section. Again, thank you for a tremendous experience.

So, doing the math, cocktail napkin style: Knightfall ends with Batman #500, to make the numbers easy: so 100 issues each of Batman and Detective. Annuals, specials, and mini-serieses, let’s say those add up to another 50 episodes worth, that looks about right. Approximating 50-week years, it comes out to an even 10 years, so lookng forward to your take on AzBats in late 2026. Or add another year if you touch Outsiders books.

It was nice to get one more Secret Origin before it ended. I enjoyed the tale Denny O’Neill and Dick Giordano. It brought up a lot of very recent additions to the Bat mythos that Millar and O’Neill had brought in. I did a little research on Kirigi and apparently he appeared previously in Batman 431 by Owsley and Aparo, with reference made to him training Bruce. So Denny was bringing a lot in from his editorship into the story.

It was interesting to hear the Secret Origins of the podcast itself. It looks like it took a lot of co-ordination to bring everyone together, and you did an amazing job to bring this podcast out on a regular basis.

I came across the podcast from hearing Shagg and Rob promote it on their podcast. I listened to the first one (think it was the Suicide Squad episode), went back to listen to the proceeding episodes and listened on faithfully from that point on.

I look forward to your next Podcast endeavours with the Midnight and Bat podcasts. If they are as good as the Secret Origins, we are in for a treat.

I recuse myself from discussing the Batman story (available in my second copy of the trade after stupidly selling the first at my comic shop in the early ’00s) because after Untold Legend of the Batman (if only,) Years 1-3, hundreds of early career set Legends of the Dark Knight, Who’s Who, Secret Files & Origins, the Year One Annuals, Zero Month, and countless other retreads, there is little in all of comics I loathe more than a recap of Bruce Wayne’s life in any way shape or form. I will be at best a sporadic listener of the upcoming BagCast: This Fucking Douche Again Podcast (it seems the swear gates were left wide open for the grand finale.)

Gah! I must protest your use of personal, private audio that may lead people to wrongly assume I’m not actually a total dick.

Here’s some real audio Ryan needs to dig up: I have no recollection of ever committing to covering all of the Quality characters. I think I said I generally like them and if you needed someone I could pitch in, but I never intended to call “dibs” on the whole lot of them.

It should come as no surprise that I’m generally not that into the Secret Origins comics, vastly preferring their role as a springboard for the conversations in this podcast. At a cursory glance over the covers with very little thought put into it, here are the stories I have read and I remember enjoying the most in no particular order:
Doll Man, The Golden Age Fury, The Spectre (sweet art!,) Batgirl, Black Condor, The Manhunters, Midnight, Plastic Man, Justice League of America, Martian Manhunter, The Rogues Gallery of The Flash, Ambush Bug, Stanley & His Monster, and Rex the Wonder Dog.

Here are the stories I found the most painful to read:
“The Glimpse,” Dolphin, G’Nort, Fire, Mr. Miracle/Oberon, Mr. America, Dr. Fate, Guardians of the Universe, & The Teen Titans.

I don’t think I remembered to point out that David Gutierrez was the Bette Midler to your Johnny Carson, and of all things to remind me, karaoke KISS. At least it was one of their few good tracks. Yay! I got to shit talk KISS on the way out the door. One more set of comic characters feel the burn…

What a great epilogue, I loved hearing all the background info, and well done to Greg for steering the fun exit interview. I was indeed a bit off-colour on that first recording, but I was so thrillled at being asked onto the show, and excited by the subject, that I wasn’t going to miss my chance to talk Legion with you. Oh, and tea is the Englishman’s default drink. Ask Paul and Mike. I must drink about ten (Lady Cop) mugs a day!

I liked that you let out the thunder sound like when you mentioned forgetting it with reference to the Power of Shazam. Clever.

A shame about Jon M Wilson being upset about you comparing the Man of Steel Pa Kent to the homophobic father of a gay son. Having been a gay young man, and come out to my parents at 22, that comment resonated. My parents are lovely people – my mother is dead now – but their attitude early on was very much ‘… but you don’t have to tell everybody, do you?’ It was homophobic in the strict sense of fearful rather than hateful. Anyway, they adjusted brilliantly, I’m lucky to have been born to such wonderful people.

And one more time, thank you so much for all the work, and love, you put into this series.

Took me forever, but I got to the end. I love the coda Ryan. It feels like a nerdy “index” comic like those Eclipse put out about Crisis, the JLA, etc. (under another imprint, but I *think* it was Eclipse. Especially the liner notes on each episode, I don’t even know how you remember all that stuff, so I’ll assume you meticulously cribbed through dozens of Facebook chats to get an idea of the context of each conversation.

I’ll echo everyone’s praise of this show as one of the greats, and the absolute standard when it comes to shows with rotating guests. Sure I wish it would continue in some form (an annual reunion show? I still think Roy Thomas published a lot of SO material in the dying embers of All-Star Squadron) but my only real regret is that I didn’t do more origins. Shagg got a lot of my favorites – I fawned about Animal Man plenty on First Strike, and Ambush Bug is the only CHARACTER I’ve ever collected, for example – but I think that’s why we became friends in the first place. I’m honored to have been on as many shows as I was, and I thank you for thinking of me at all. I’m sure my participation there was a big factor in my joining the Fire and Water Network.

Already enjoying Midnight the Podcasting Hour, and Knightcast can’t come out quickly enough, so it’s not the end… just a new beginning.